The memoirist Mary Karr says, “Write less about how you suffer, and more about how you survive.” Still, this story was not mine to tell. I did not grow up in foster care in America. I was never orphaned or separated from my birth family or adopted, and I hesitated to write a story that was not my own. My daughter became increasingly annoyed and said, “I’m not asking you to write your story. Write mine. Listen and I’ll tell you.”

If it is true a writer is a professional listener and question asker, the resulting narrative depends solely on whom she is asking and listening to. For this book, the voices I listened to were those of the kids actually living in or aging out of foster care.

I also listened to my daughter. I listened to friends and family members in the foster care system. I exchanged mail with former foster youth and read their stories. I asked, and listened, and wrote, and my daughter’s story became part of someone else’s, and another someone’s. And after a long while they all became Muir’s story.

The kids I listened to have known great joy. They have suffered and survived. They are the experts on their own lives, and they understand that the purpose of adoption is not to procure children to fulfill an adult’s desire to be a parent; that the intended purpose of adoption is to find parents and families for children who need them. They know there are adults who genuinely believe the lie that foster care is where “bad kids go” and who also refuse to acknowledge the brutal and violent history of child stealing in America, which is racially, economically, and religiously motivated.